ANT Gems

This title concerns Ant, a Java-based, cross-platform build tool that can be used to automate many of the processes that need to occur to turn source code into a software product (compilation, testing, packaging, deploying etc.).

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ANT Gems sets out to help you master the use of Ant and then provides a set of effective, cross-platform techniques that can be taken by a programmer and used "as is". The focus is less Java orientated than competing books and is more applicable to the general programmer who generates code either in XML, Java, or C# and wants to gain the 1st order benefits of continuous integration: testing, building, deploying, reporting, and formatting. It will also help those developers who are currently on the learning curve for XML, XSLT and Web Service technologies. The opening chapters of the book offer a clear and concise treatment of Ant and its effective usage. They teach the basics in a quick, efficient manner and then show you how to sharpen your Ant skills, cover some of the subtleties in its usage (the documentation is woefully inadequate in this respect) and provide a set of best practices for successful software builds using Ant. They also demonstrate how to write your own tasks in Ant, such as a custom logger. The remaining chapters provide a set of Ant "gems".
Each gem is structured in the same clear, accessible manner and provides a reusable real world technique for the Java, XML and general web developer.